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*squelch*
…
*squelch*
…
*squelch*
The sound filled Rachel’s ears, repeating rhythmically along with the contractions of Sarah’s throat as she was squeezed along its length.
*squelch*
…
*squelch* *gurgle*
…
*squelch* *gurgle*
…
*SQUELCH*
She felt her head press up against a tight opening, the pressure mounting until it finally pushed her through, the sphincter firmly stroking down every inch of her exposed skin as she was excreted. She slid a short distance and then fell, knocking into something solid and taking it down with her as she splashed headfirst into the goopy mess of stomach contents.
There was a flurry of motion as Rachel frantically tried to turn right-side up and get her head above the hot liquid. To add to her panic, she quickly realized that she wasn’t the only thing moving around in there. When she did eventually manage to find her bearings and right herself her head burst to the surface, gasping for breath, but her feet were far from steady. The floor was slick and sloped, not to mention squishy, and something was still writhing around under the surface, knocking against her and threatening to push her over again.
Suddenly she heard something else break the surface of the liquid next to her, followed by another gasp and a voice.
“What the-!?” exclaimed the voice.
“Dave!?” she asked.
“Rachel!?” he replied.
*GURGLE*
The stomach walls contracted around them, pushing them into each other. There was another flurry of arms and legs as they both tried to avoid getting knocked back under.
“Hey, watch where you’re putting those hands!” Rachel complained.
“It’s not like I can see where they’re going!” Dave replied.
The walls withdrew, but at that moment Sarah began to walk, jostling them back and forth within the already turbulent confines of her stomach. Each quickly realized that the other person was the most stable thing they could hold on to, so they braced against each other to stay upright, despite their lack of clothing.
*glorp*
The folds undulated around them, stirring up the chyme about their legs. For a long moment, the only sounds were those of the teen’s belly, her heartbeat and footsteps, and the occasional grunt as one of them caught themselves from falling.
“Sarah… ate me…” Rachel whimpered after a while. Dave wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear a sniffle over the constant sloshing.
“Rachel…” he started, but realized he didn’t know what he could say to comfort her.
“I guess it’s a fitting end, huh? After eating all those tinies I end up a snack myself. Probably all I was good for anyway.”
Dave dwelled on her words for a moment. To be honest, part of him agreed- at least with her first statement. After everything she’d put him through, he felt a bit of justice in knowing that this was how she would end. And yet, he found no joy in that feeling.
“So much for my life. So much for yours. Damn, I can’t believe I trusted her. I called her my friend!” she lashed out with one arm, slapping it into the wet walls to little effect.
“Calm down,” he urged.
“Why should I!?”
“Because you’ll knock us over again!”
“Yeah! And we’d be better off too!” she replied, she took a breath to check her raging emotions, but it was broken by a sob. “Trust me, I’ve felt them struggling plenty of times before… Once digestion really starts, you’ll wish you had drowned first.”
“…How long do you think we have?” he asked. Rachel thought for a moment.
“A few minutes, maybe.”
“…And how long will it take before… you know?”
Rachel didn’t answer, which scared him more than anything she could have said. There was another long moment of silence.
“Dave… I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you had to know me. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Alright, that’s enough, Dave thought. That was just too much for him to hear.
“Rachel, if it weren’t for you, I’d already be dead by now.”
“Huh?”
“You saw all those other tinies. If you hadn’t got me, someone else would have. You think they’d have kept me around?”
“You think I’m any better? If it wasn’t for that stupid can of hair spray almost blowing me up I would’ve eaten you just like any other tiny.”
“Maybe. But even if you did, one day someone else like me would’ve said something that got through to you. Someone else would’ve seen through your act to the good kid underneath.”
“How can you call me that after everything!?” she protested.
“Because even though you keep trying to prove to yourself that I’m wrong, you just keep proving me right. Rachel… I can’t say I’m happy about how my life has turned out, but I am happy I got to meet you. You’re living proof that even the worst delinquent has a heart somewhere deep inside. It means there’s still hope for the world.”
*GROAN*
The stomach walls pressed in on them again. Dave felt Rachel throw her arms around him for support, their chests squishing together, but when the walls receded, Rachel didn’t let go.
“Even the worst delinquent has a heart somewhere deep inside,” she echoed with a chuckle. “You’re not a philosopher, you’re a poet.” She released her embrace, wiping an arm across her face, even though any tears she had shed had already been lost in the copious slime, which she had no hope of wiping away.
“You’re right, actually. In college anyway,” Dave replied.
“Deep inside…” she said again, “Wait a sec- deep inside…”
“What is it?” he asked. If he could see her face, he would have seen it light up with a spark of hope.
“Maybe this is a good end for me, but it’s not for you. I have an idea. There’s a chance we’ll drown trying, but if it works, we might just live.”
“I guess either way it’s better than waiting for digestion to start, what do you have in mind?” he asked.
“The digestive system. Deeper inside there’s no acid. We’ll never be able to make it back up Sarah’s throat, but we might be able to make it out of her stomach if we can find the exit.”
“That- that’s brilliant!” Dave exclaimed. “Where do we look? Is it under our feet or something?”
“No,” she replied, thinking for a second, “I remember the diagram from biology class.” She felt around the slimy walls with one hand, trying to get a picture of their shape. “I think it’s somewhere over there, underneath all this gunk.”
“If we make it out of here alive, remind me to thank your biology teacher,” Dave remarked.
“Just, um, take my hand and try to follow my lead,” she said.
“Right,” he took a firm grasp of her- or as firm as possible considering how slick everything was. He prepared himself to follow the girl below the surface, but she seemed to hesitate. “Rachel?” he asked.
“Um… in case we don’t make it… thanks,” she said. They both smiled for a moment in the gurgling darkness. Then Dave felt her pull as she plunged her head into the sloshing pool of chyme around them. He followed suit, sticking his face into the hot soup, trying to ignore the sensation and instead focus on where Rachel was leading him.
He followed her tugs, guiding him into a tighter section of the stomach where the fleshy ceiling hung much lower. He had to crouch in order to fit and he quickly realized that there was no longer any room above him to come up for air. But he suppressed his urge to panic, trying to remind himself that as a tiny he could hold his breath for much longer than his body was used to.
After a few seconds, Dave felt Rachel pull his hand forward again, placing it next to hers against the far stomach wall. He felt it instantly: a set of wrinkles pressed up into a circular shape, that must be it. He felt her start pushing against it, trying to squeeze her hand into the center, but she didn’t seem to have much luck. He joined in, pushing with both his hands against the stubborn ring of muscle, digging his feet into the floor as much as possible for any bit of leverage he could manage.
Suddenly he felt Rachel shift abruptly. He was worried for a moment until he felt at the pucker again and realized that one of her arms had slipped clean through. Realizing this was their chance, he got behind her and began to push with all his might. It probably wasn’t comfortable for her, but it worked. Her head and shoulders slid into the tight opening and passed through.
He felt her free hand form a death grip around his wrist as she began to push from the other side with her other arm. It was clear as she dragged herself through that she had no intention of leaving him behind. Dave felt his own hand begin to enter the pucker as Rachel’s upper body exited. He managed to use his other hand to widen the opening enough to slip his head inside next to her legs and then braced himself against the pressure as the ring of muscle reluctantly accepted him.
With Dave no longer in any position to push, the rest was up to Rachel. Now fully out the other end, she put a foot on either side of the opening, grabbed Dave’s wrist with both hands, and pulled as hard as she could. There was a moment of tension as his shoulders pressed against the reluctant sphincter, but then the slick muscular walls suddenly gave way and he abruptly shot through.
The force cast them out into the waiting chamber along with a sputter of chyme. As they eagerly gasped at what little air there was, they became aware of the new set of fleshy walls that surrounded them, much tighter than the stomach, but not nearly as unforgiving as what they had just passed through. It was a narrow, horizontal tube, with just enough room for them to move their arms around.
“It worked!” Dave exclaimed.
“Yeah! Forget about thanking him, my teacher deserves a medal!” Part of her couldn’t believe those words had just come out of her mouth, but she was too relieved to care.
“So, uh, you can let go of my wrist now.”
“Oh, right, sorry.”
“So does this mean we won’t be, you know, digested?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
*GURGLE*
The slimy walls suddenly squeezed in around them, pushing them forward a bit but also pushing them a little ways apart.
“Dave!” Rachel yelped as she felt him squished off her legs.
“Don’t worry,” came a muffled reply as the walls began to relax. She heard a few distinct squelching sounds and then felt a hand against her foot as Dave crawled back towards her. “I’m fine, I’m still here.”
“Good. I… I really don’t want to be alone in here…”
“Yeah, me neither, kid. …Um, where is ‘here’ exactly?”
“I guess it’s the beginning of her small intestine. You really don’t know this stuff?”
“Well, it’s been a while since I was in biology class.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”
A loud groan rumbled from nearby, followed by a few fleeting gurgles. A second later the walls pressed in on them again. Dave grabbed hold of Rachel’s ankle to make sure they weren’t separated as the wave of peristalsis carried them a little bit further.
“I don’t think Sarah’s belly is too happy with us,” he joked.
“Good! A bellyache is the least she deserves!” She slammed a fist against the squishy walls as best she could. “And you know what? If I make it out of here the first thing I’m gonna do is make sure this little fuck gets everything she deserves! You hear that Sarah!?”
There was no response, just a few more gurgles from various parts of her gut.
“So, um, if we do make it through, does that mean we’ll be coming out of her…” Dave asked. He felt Rachel’s enthusiasm die in the short silence that followed.
“Shit. Yeah, I guess we have that to look forward to. Maybe we should just try to drown ourselves now and avoid the humiliation.”
“Come on, don’t say that.”
“Relax Dave, it was a joke.”
“Oh… I don’t think I’ve heard you make a joke before.”
“Well, there you go.”
There was a lull in the conversation; a brief period of silence, filled with another few contractions of the intestinal walls.
“Was… was that what it was like in my stomach?” Rachel asked hesitantly. Dave was caught slightly off guard by the sudden shift in tone.
“…Yeah, pretty much,” he answered after a moment, though he seemed a bit uncomfortable at the thought.
“And all those other tinies… that’s what it was like for them too… But they never made it out.” She thought about how it used to feel: the tingling in her belly, the vibrations she could feel if she put her hand in just the right place. Then she thought back to just a few moments ago: the writhing walls, the churning chyme, the acids they had narrowly avoided. She thought about how terrifying it all had been- how terrifying it still was, even though now they were relatively safe.
“I’m sorry,” she said for a second time. There was a pause as he considered her words.
“Listen… if we do make it out of here alive, it’ll have been thanks to you so… if we do, I think I can forgive you, for that part at least.”
“Really!?” Rachel asked hopefully.
“Really,” he replied. “So, what do we have to do next?”
“Uhhh, I guess we just wait. Her digestive system should move us along just like the rest of her food.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not totally sure, definitely a few hours though, maybe a day.”
“That long? Man, even if we don’t suffocate, by then we’ll be starving.”
“I’ve seen tinies last way longer than that; it’s probably the least of our problems. Besides, if you get really hungry you can always eat some of the goop around here. It’s Sarah’s food after all.”
“That was another joke, right?”
“Sure, Dave.”